Storytelling with TechSmith’s App Show and Minecraft

One of these days, Techsmith’s App Show won’t be in free beta and I’ll be sad. For the record, I’m pretty sure that this nifty storytelling tool wasn’t made for education but that didn’t stop plenty of educators from finding it. I actually love App Show because it helps users create stories from an embedded “best practices” framework. You plug in your device and film scenes. After filming scenes, you add voice over and music. If you have Camtasia, you can export for further editing and what’s cooler is that each clip translates over to its own timeline for much more fluid editing.

Yesterday, Braeden started working on his version of a Google office in Minecraft. Of course he wanted collaborators so of course that meant that I would be deeply embedded in Minecraft greatness yesterday. He wanted to record a quick clip and App Show was the right tool for it, especially after my Quicktime recorder kept failing and my Airserver refused to work!

I should also note again that I have Camtasia and recording from a plugged in device is a function of Camtasia. Maybe it was a bit of “tech for the sake of tech” or maybe it was that we chose the right tool that we needed. At any rate, it was fun and it worked like a charm!

Using it is as simple as opening the app, choosing a pathway and then deciding on number of scenes and length which can be changed at any time. You don’t even have to plug in an ios device. You can totally do the same thing with an android or with any form of video because there is an “upload media” function which means that you can make a story about whatever floats your boat!

Braeden’s take: He loves it and is now writing a script for a minecraft cartoon because this tool will be perfect for making that!